Weather is in the family

It's time for the weather unit!  How appropriate-since this Southern Belle just experienced her first full blown New England blizzard. 

 In the brick and mortar world, I had always done the weather with a lot of TPR- Total Physical Response.  If you use your body, your brain will remember the words.  So if you shake like a leaf, you will remember the words for "I'm cold."  I you pretend to wave a fan in front of you, you will remember, "It's hot."

 I had my students fill their language basket with lots of weather objects:

I had a lot of fun pantomiming the weather myself.  I even got to open an umbrella in the house in the name of langauge learning!  We dressed up and plotted the weather across the state.  We described different pictures of the weather.  We got off on a hurricane tangent once-but that happens to the best of teachers.


One family makes Spanish a group activity.  I have a parent I love to work with because she is always on the ball with whatever project I assign them. 

She has her children crowd around the camera and show us the weather- even her baby participates:

Hace frío

 

Hace sol.

 

Está lloviendo.

So when you are learning at home, make a group activity out of it and more fun is had by all. 
 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I love the movie Gattaca.  If you aren't a sci-fi person, you should watch it anyway.  I believe the science in that movie is completely possible.  In the not-so distant future, everyone is genetically engineered to perfection.  Nothing is left to "God."

This system appears to be working until Ethan Hawke's character shows us that the human spirit makes anything possible...la la la ...Happy Hollywood ending.  I get it. Hold on to your dreams. Set goals, work hard, cheat the system a little if you have to do so, and don't let anyone tell you something isn't possible.

Everyone needs a Gattaca moment.  I had one in 7th grade. I made 100s on Spanish tests other kids who had been pulled for AG (academically gifted) since first grade were failing.  As Ethan's character  put it in Gattaca when he won a swimming game against his genetically created perfect younger brother:

"It was the moment when my brother was not as strong as he believed, and I was not as weak as I believed. It was the moment that changed everything.”

Those kids in Spanish class were not so smart and I was not so dumb.  Thank God that AG pull-out program does not exist in the north.  That is just one more reason to stay here forever.

Since anything was possible, what did I want to be when I grew up? I decided on Spanish teacher that day in 7th grade and never changed my mind. I added another language, but I didn't change the plan.

I'd love to be a comedienne and some day write a screenplay for Youtube.  That would happen just for fun.   I'll let Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, and Maya Rudolph handle it as a profession.

A couple of months ago, my Intermediate Spanish and French classes (4th, 5th, and 6th grade) were tackling a unit on professions and how the endings change according to gender. "Soy profesor, soy profesora."  We use Live Mocha  as their learning tool, and it's wonderful.  But how do I take this grammar point that college students struggle with and make it meaningful to younger learners?

Re-posted with permission from Live Mocha

Eureka!  I asked them the big question- what do you want to be when you grow up?  Why stop there?  Why not have them dress up as what they want to be when they grow up and give an oral presentation for the webcam? 

To keep it simple, we brainstormed possible choices and how to say them in both masculine and feminine forms.  If you don't limit the choices you get thirty children wanting to be lion tamers.

After they had choosen  what they want to be, I gave them a template for their report.

 For example in Spanish:

Me llamo ______ (my name is)
Soy_____ ( the profession with the correct gender ending and NO article)
Trabajo en ________ (where they work-hospital, school, etc.)
Me gusta________ (what a person in this profession would like)
Soy _____ (two adjectives that describe that profession)


They sent me rough drafts and we had office hours to practice pronouncing the vocabulary before they did it for the recording in class.

Here is a nurse practitioner:

What creative kids! Yes, we had to sit through about forty presentations, but they were fun!  What a great way to teach gender endings.   I hope they all grow up to be what they want to be and relish those Gattaca  moments.

Other ways to use your own children

You don't just have to hoard their old toys.

Sometimes, when you need an example, you take your sons outside.


Color Hop!



Sometimes, if you are going to sing "Frere Jacques" with a French class, you can sing along with a visual aide: